


Life Line

by Cluegirl



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon rescue, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, PTSD, relationship implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 00:57:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One feature of Steve remains familiar enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Line

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [this picture](http://25.media.tumblr.com/80e114b4311416eeae64c0f2ea1cc846/tumblr_mq6d84kUoi1snhds6o1_500.jpg), and my irredeemable fetish for gorgeous manhands. Like Steve's. Whether wee or large, boy has got Digits, man! (Pervs. Isn't sorry.)

The voice didn't do it. 

Bucky had been dreaming that voice for days – every minute he wasn't screaming, every time he managed to drift up above the pain and fear and sick, swimming itch, he'd heard his name, called in _that_ voice. Hell, in _that_ tone; shaky, glad, eager, relieved – the tone that would let him know his fever was broken, and his nightmare would be over as soon as he opened his eyes to Brooklyn again.

Only he'd kept opening his eyes to steel and straps and needles instead of waterstained plaster, thin blankets and blue, anxious eyes, and there was only so many times he could let himself be fooled.

The face sure as heck didn't do it – broad-jawed and solid, cheekbones you could break a battleship on -- he'd had blue-eyed fever hallucinations more convincing. 

But those hands, he could never forget – the way the palm cupped his neck; long, nimble fingers carding his hair as the thumb found the notch behind his ear like it had been made to fit there. "Steve?" The touch had startled the name out of him – the only name not his own that he'd spoken since the Krauts had dragged him out of the cage and strapped him to the table – and for a moment he'd panicked, thinking he'd slipped and _hating_ himself for it.

But then that half-strange face had lit up with Steve's own beaming smile, and Bucky's heart had started to beat again. He'd wondered when those hands had wrenched loose the straps that had held him down for days, and had almost doubted when they hoisted him upright and held him there till his legs starched up enough to hold him, but the grip -- _Steve's_ grip had always been the strongest thing he had, and Bucky had lived all his life knowing the feel of it. Desperation, fear, stubborn, bloody-minded determination, all these defined themselves in the fierce grip that little cuss could crank down when it mattered.

And dear God, did it suddenly matter. 

He'd let the strength of that grip haul him out of the valley of the shadow, and scruff him along for three surreal days' march through German territory afterward, and every time he woke shaking, wound up tight around a shout and ready to swing at whatever came in reach, it was those hands – Steve's hands -- that caught him, held him till the panic passed, and let him know it was all right. 

Tanks the size of tenement buildings; guns that shot blue fire and burned a man to nothing so quick his scream lasted longer than he took to disappear; skull-faced Nazis with perfect English who'd blow up a whole factory just because one crazy Yankee showed up with a tin shield and no idea when to quit; all these things could be real, so long as it was Steve's hands that pressed over his racing heart, caught his swinging fist, or spread warm and sure across his shoulderblades.

"I'm here, Buck," he'd whisper, chest pressed to chest, breath stirring the icy air with memories of Brooklyn winters when it had been him doing the holding and the hoping. "I'm here. We're out. You're safe..." And of course he wasn't – this far behind the lines none of them were, but with _those_ hands anchoring him down against that unfamiliar span of muscle. Bucky was willing to shut up and accept the words, if not as truth, at least as promise.

Because they were together again -- Bucky and Stevie – and the Vinegar Hill Boys could take on anything and everything together. 

Everything that mattered.

And with his fingers threaded tight into Steve's in the chilly German darkness, dear _God,_ did it suddenly matter.


End file.
